


Strangers' Attraction

by Keiko Kirin (sakana17)



Category: The Persuaders
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-26
Updated: 2006-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:17:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakana17/pseuds/Keiko%20Kirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brett is drawn to Danny after the events in "Angie... Angie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers' Attraction

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set right after the episode _Angie... Angie_.

During the drive back to Cannes, whenever Brett checked his rear-view mirror, the red Ferrari was there. Sometimes close, sometimes dropping back, and never near enough to see Danny clearly. Brett was glad for that; he respected the solitude Danny would want right now. Yet they shared the road, so Danny was not travelling alone.

Just after entering town, Danny's car was gone. Brett wove through the streets toward the hotel, and the Ferrari was replaced by other cars. It wasn't waiting at the kerb when he parked. As Brett rode the lift to his floor, it occurred to him that he had no idea what Danny's plans were. Danny could leave for America without a farewell.

Fate and the judge had tossed them together; Angie had almost thrown them apart, had almost shattered the fragile beginnings of trust between them. From the way they'd worked together at the ruins, sliding into easy communication and understanding, Brett didn't believe that the trust was gone, but he couldn't be certain what else remained. They had argued about Angie, and Brett had delivered some hard truths Danny hadn't wanted to hear. In Danny's shoes, Brett wasn't sure he'd have wanted to renew their nascent friendship.

Brett showered and tried to unwind with a glass of brandy, but his mood was too restless. He had been feeling this way a lot lately, and from past experience, he knew the only cure for it was the right sort of venue and the right sort of company. And perhaps, he thought as he sifted through his clothes for the right sort of outfit, it was just as well that Danny wasn't around. Brett was too attracted to Danny for his own good, had started to miss his company when they weren't together, and Danny was not the right sort of company that Brett needed.

Brett smiled ruefully as he selected a pair of trousers and matching shirt. He was well aware of Danny's faults -- could name all the obvious ones without much thought -- but despite this, he was susceptible to Danny's charms. Danny's breezy, low class, rough-and-tumble personality had a way of growing on one.

"Like barnacles," Brett said sternly to himself, looking in the mirror.

He left his shirt mostly unbuttoned, allowing his pendant to show against the tan he'd acquired. The shirt was a shiny liquid black, and he toned it down with a sedate, dark sports jacket and finely tailored but conservative black trousers. He combed his hair carefully, inspecting himself in the mirror for the right look: available but not too available, interested but not too interested.

In the lift down to the lobby, his restlessness increased. He needed the night air, the press of people, the charged exchange of invitations between strangers. He needed to shake off the lingering images of Danny, especially the grave, serious, hurt Danny he'd become since Judge Fulton had first voiced his suspicions about Angie.

But as fate would have it, crossing the lobby Brett was presented with another image of Danny: planted on a barstool and so engrossed in his drink that he was ignoring the pretty young bird flirting at him. As Brett approached, she transferred her flirtations to him, and he graced her with one of his politely insincere smiles. With the insight gained through experience, she turned from Brett with a pout of frustration and set her sights on an older Greek gentleman.

Danny hadn't changed his clothes, which were still a little dusty. As Brett slid into the next stool, he noticed a smudge of dried blood on Danny's shirt where he had cradled Angie. Brett ordered a whisky, disgusted with himself for staying just because Danny was here. Danny hadn't even acknowledged him.

Danny ordered another drink, and Brett followed suit, but it wasn't until Brett lit his cigar that Danny looked over at him.

His expression was guarded, not welcoming but not hostile, and uncharacteristically unreadable. Brett considered what to say, feeling a need to explain his presence here, but before he could speak Danny said, "I went to the hospital. Angie didn't make it."

Brett looked down into his drink. He almost said, "I'm sorry," but couldn't bring himself to give Danny the perfunctory response. The truth was that he was sorry for Danny, not for Angie, whose violent life had come to a predictably tragic end.

Brett tapped ash into an ashtray, not meeting Danny's eyes. "If you'd rather be alone, I'll leave."

"You don't have to go," Danny said easily, though without insistence. "But I'm not such great company tonight."

Brett sipped his drink and they sat in silence for a while before he glanced over at Danny.

"Daniel. I am sorry," he found himself saying after all, shaken by how motionless Danny sat, how remote he was.

Danny cast him a challenging look. "Are you?"

Brett rolled his cigar between his thumb and forefinger. He didn't want to rise to this bait, so he said simply, "Yes. I am."

Danny turned to face him. "Why? He wasn't your friend." His voice was flat and harsh.

Brett couldn't help himself. "Was he yours? In the end?"

He expected an outburst. He expected Danny to punch him, and quite rightly: he shouldn't be intruding in Danny's grief, much less be so rude as to speak the truth. Instead, Danny looked away, shoulders slumping, and finished off his drink with one swallow.

"You'll never understand the way it was with me and Angie," he said, signalling the bartender for another. "You can't understand. Angie was part of my world, not yours."

"Yes," Brett agreed quietly, extinguishing his cigar. He should get up and leave, he told himself. The strong, buried feeling of resentment he'd felt when he'd met Angie had resurfaced: an ugly feeling, particularly in light of subsequent events, but one he hadn't managed to conquer. Angie had represented that part of Danny Brett was never going to know. Angie had received Danny's unshakeable loyalty and love -- without deserving it, in Brett's opinion -- and Angie had used these against Danny in the most reprehensible ways.

Brett toyed with his glass, watching the light play in the liquid. If he were to go, if this were good-bye, he wanted to say something first, anything that would bring Danny out of the past with Angie, even if only briefly. He cast about for the right words, the right tone, but only came up with sentiments either too maudlin or too cold.

"You're going out?" Danny asked before Brett could say anything.

Brett flashed on his previous plans for the night, and warmth crept up his cheeks. He studiously avoided Danny's eyes and replied, "I was."

"Hey, don't let me stop you, your Lordship," Danny said, with a hint of the old Danny Wilde good humour. "The night's young, and I bet the chicks are even younger."

Brett managed a small smile and glanced at Danny. "I don't really feel like it now," he said truthfully. The restlessness hadn't gone away, but being with Danny kept it in balance.

Danny lifted his glass and edged closer.

"So, you're going to stay and get shloshed with me, instead of going out on the town to ravish the local talent?" Though he playfully clinked his glass against Brett's, there was something cold in his voice. "Guess you deserve a medal. Sacrifice in the line of duty."

Brett stared at him, quite willing to give him the fight he was looking for. But Danny's look checked his response. Grief, guilt, anger: all there, and none of it had anything to do with Brett Sinclair. He almost reached out to pat Danny's shoulder and reassure him through touch, but, not trusting his own instincts, he refrained.

"If you're asking if it was a duty, if the judge assigned me to expose Angie, then the answer is yes." Brett took a drink. "It wasn't an assignment I wanted, Daniel, nor did I want it to end this way. But I'll tell you something else." He looked into Danny's eyes. "I also didn't want Angie to destroy you, and I hope he doesn't succeed in doing so now with his death. You're too good for that, Daniel. You are not like Angie."

Danny gazed at him for a long moment and slightly shifted his jaw to one side. There was still challenge in his eyes, as if he dared Brett to keep talking and bury himself in unkind words about Angie. But this was tempered with something else: a calmness, perhaps even agreement.

Danny tapped Brett's jacket with one finger. "I'll tell ya, maybe I'm more like him than you think. You weren't there the whole time. I was going to shoot him."

Brett raised one eyebrow but said neutrally, "To stop him. Not because you wanted to, or would be paid to do it, or would enjoy it. I was there long enough."

Danny's lips parted and he frowned slightly, but he didn't have a response to this. He turned back to his drink, finishing it off with a wince. After a long while, he shook his head and said, "I'm not good company tonight."

"And if I leave you here, you'll stay and drink yourself into a stupor, I suppose."

Danny gave him half a smile. "You have a plan to stop me?"

"No," Brett said, brushing some dust from the shoulder of Danny's leather jacket. "I was going to suggest it would be more practical to drink yourself into a stupor in your room. Much tidier for the hotel that way, don't you agree?"

"Tidier, huh? Oh, by all means, your dukeship." He stood up and patted Brett's arm with the back of his hand. "You get us a bottle of good stuff, I don't care what it is as long as it's smooth and eighty proof. I'll leave the door unlocked." Danny walked off, leaving Brett to signal the bartender.

Tab paid, bottle of whisky procured, Brett arrived at Danny's room, and as promised the door was unlocked. He entered to the sound of the shower, and while waiting set out the glasses and poured them both generous ones. He took off his jacket and slung it over the back of the sofa and paced the room with his drink, pausing occasionally to glance unseeingly out of the window.

His restlessness had returned, fueled by Danny's casual invitation. That Danny would want his company instead of retreating into solitude made Brett aware of a subtle shift in their relationship. A deeper trust. A stronger bond than a flirty fondness.

This only made him feel more abashed for desiring Danny. Brett knew how careless and reckless he could be, too accustomed to putting his own needs first. He didn't want to jeopardise his friendship with Danny by reducing it to the merely physical. He'd already felt the cold sting of Danny's disgusted anger. He had no wish to invite that anger again.

The sound of the shower stopped, and Danny padded out with a towel tied around his waist, wiping water from his chest and arms with a smaller towel. He scrubbed it over his hair and tossed it aside carelessly, going straight for the glass of whisky waiting for him. Taking a sip, he looked Brett over and said, "You really were going out."

Brett smiled with false modesty. "A little too obvious?"

Danny cocked his head and slumped into a chair, propping his feet on the low table in front of the sofa. He sat back, savoring his drink, and murmured, "A little too _something_, that's for sure."

Brett sat down on the sofa, warmed by Danny's appreciation and strongly tempted to draw the conversation out and receive more of it. He took a sip and ran a hand through his hair. "A little too beautiful, perhaps?" he said, expecting Danny to make some predictably contrary gag that would defuse the moment.

Danny gazed at him, rubbing his thumb up and down his glass. "Mm. Yeah."

His gaze sent a renewed flush of warmth throughout Brett's body. He tried to meet it coolly, unconcerned, but Danny seemed to see right through him. Danny shifted his legs, raising one knee out of the towel, and Brett's eyes darted to look -- he liked what he saw -- before he could stop himself. Danny let the towel open wider, inviting more of Brett's approval.

Brett smiled falsely to hide his interest. "Why, Daniel, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me."

Danny gave him a long, assessing look. "You think you know me that well, huh?" he said with a smile.

Brett finished off his drink and rose as if to get another, but all he really wanted to do was to move around and shake off the electric energy surging inside.

"Oh, really, Daniel. You're not that mysterious, you know," he said, so coldly dismissive he hated himself for it.

It had been a mistake to come here, and a mistake to stay. He'd never seen Danny in a mood like this before, and he didn't have the appropriate defences, the appropriate deflective responses. He set his glass down next to the whisky bottle.

Danny came up next to him, holding his almost empty glass. Brett's glance skirted over the wet hair curling behind his ears and over his forehead and the tanned wiry torso. Danny stood so close Brett felt the warm moisture from his drying skin.

Brett took his glass to pour him another, but faltered when Danny pressed against him and slid his hand down the front of Brett's shirt, over his belt and along his hip.

"You know me so well, you knew I'd do this, huh?" Danny's hand slipped lower and came to rest. Brett moved against it, driven by raw physical need, rocking slightly. Danny stroked him tantalisingly.

Overcoming his impulses, Brett resolutely took the whisky bottle and filled Danny's glass. He set the bottle aside but kept his hand on it as if to stay grounded.

"I think I will go out," he said as casually as he could.

"Yeah? Where are you gonna go?" Danny's stroking stopped long enough for him to insinuate his fingers into Brett's belt buckle, deftly unhooking it, and as he resumed his caresses, he unfastened Brett's trousers.

Brett swallowed hard. "I know some places." Danny's touch had captured the restlessness inside him, was close to setting it free. Too close.

Danny slid his hand down Brett's hip, pushing his trousers lower. "What places?" he asked. "What places where you'd go dressed like this?" His fingertips trailed over Brett's exposed skin.

Brett, no longer caring about escape, arched to Danny's touch, and his trousers slid lower. His voice was breathy as he replied, "Rough places. I'm sure you know the kind..."

"Rough?" Danny's hand paused on his hip and he drew him around to look at him. "Oh, so you like it rough?" he asked with a mocking moué, eyes glittering.

Brett could be seduced, but he would not be teased. He graced Danny with an icy smile and said, "Yes. So if you'll excuse me--"

Danny grabbed his waist and held him, heavy-lidded eyes still gleaming. "Not rough enough for you, princess?" He ground his hips against Brett's, letting the towel fall to the floor. The touch of their bodies was too much for Brett to bear. He clutched Danny's shoulders, silently willing him not to stop. "You think you know me so well," Danny muttered. "You don't know anything."

Light speed after that. Danny got him out of his trousers and shoes and pulled him to the bed, and Brett, too fuelled by his own dark chaotic need, said cuttingly, "The bed, Daniel? What's next, flowers and champagne? If I'd wanted the honeymoon treatment, I'd have rung my tailor, had him make me a wedding dress."

Danny responded by pushing him to the bed and climbing over him. He shoved Brett's shirttails up and grabbed his thighs. The look of anger and energy in his eyes, the strength of his hands shaping Brett to take him -- Brett's body pounded with wanting him. Rough he wanted, rough he'd get -- few niceties before Danny was inside him, hammering into him like a mindless animal, giving him the hard buggering Brett had been longing for.

But it was Danny. And it was so wrong for it to be Danny. Even through Brett's pleasure, the wrongness of it spread down his spine like ice water, coolling his blood and body until the pleasure faded, retreated, leaving only regret. He'd fallen into his own trap, let his own selfish needs seduce him more than Danny had, and now there was this. Danny was on his own course, with the blindness that came with urgency, and a brief while later reached completion. In the panting calm that followed, he focussed on Brett and his face became a tight mask of horror. He rolled off of him and lay on the bed, catching his breath and staring at the ceiling.

Brett wished he could be anywhere but here, wished he could turn back the clock hands and start the evening over, and this time, he would have bloody well stayed in his room with a good book. Except he wasn't much of a reader -- who was he fooling? Only Danny, and a feeling of such emptiness came over him he thought he would be sick. He sat up and got out of bed, fumbling with the rest of the buttons on his shirt.

Danny's fingers brushed against his arm. "Come back?" he asked quietly.

Brett looked at him guiltily, almost paralysed by the guilt he saw looking back at him. He nodded. "I will," he promised.

It was a promise difficult to keep, the urge to flee after he'd washed was so strong, so instilled. But he would not break a promise to Danny, he had not sunk that low. He deposited his shirt with his jacket and returned to the bed where Danny, ever the peasant, had tidied himself with one of the damp bath towels and was sitting up with his arms hooked round his knees. Brett slid into bed and under the covers. He reached out a hand to touch Danny's back, but stopped himself. Touch was reassurance, and Brett wasn't assured of anything.

Danny straightened his legs, lay back, and matter-of-factly came to rest against Brett's chest, curling against him. So welcome, so reassuring, so wanted that Brett's embrace came easily, sliding around Danny naturally, holding him in place.

"I'm sorry," Danny said.

"It is I who should apologise." Danny gave him a look of disbelief, and Brett said, "I rather goaded you into it, and I'm very sorry for that. Honestly."

Danny was silent for a moment, but his jaw moved against Brett's shoulder. "We don't do what we don't wanna do," he said after a while. There was a certain remoteness in his voice, and with a chill Brett thought of Angie. He wondered if Danny was thinking of him, too.

He ran his fingers through Danny's hair, mostly dry now and curling madly in the back. He combed through the curls gently and said, "I suppose that's true. For both of us."

Danny glanced at him, one eyebrow arched. Brett touched his cheek. "It's been a long day, my dear."

"That it has, kid," Danny said with a sigh, settling comfortably against him. "That it has."

\-----

It was early morning when Brett woke, staring at the bedside lamp which was still on. Danny's arm crossed his line of vision as he switched it off.

"Good morning, princess," Danny said softly and pleasantly against Brett's ear.

"Mmmf," Brett replied, nuzzling deeper into the pillow, inviting oblivion despite the distraction of Danny moving over him and against him.

Danny's body was warm and interested -- very interested -- and his hands were busy, sometimes soothing, sometimes provoking. Brett didn't have to look at him to know he was smiling, in a good mood, being very Danny Wilde. Brett relaxed, gave up on oblivion, and fell for his charms; he was helpless against Danny's touch, his playfulness, his seductive energy. Drawn deeper into the spell, Brett rocked against him, clutched the pillow and murmured, "Oh, Danny... I want..."

"Shhhhh." Danny pressed a finger to Brett's lips. "I know what you want. We're gonna do what I want this time."

And what Danny wanted was to touch him all over, his caresses like kisses; to take him from behind; to fill him exquisitely, without urgency; to make love to him slowly, maddeningly and deliciously slowly; to stroke his hair while their bodies moved as one; to watch his profile at the moment of Brett's completion and say to him, "You're beautiful, kid," before surrendering to his own fall.

Afterwards Brett moved in a daze. No quips passed through his lips to disturb his smile. Bathed, he crawled into bed and dimly heard the shower, and the fog didn't lift until Danny was in his arms again, damp and smelling of soap, smiling at him. The sight of his smile, the gleam in those gorgeous blue eyes -- a gleam that was just for him -- and the warmth and the strength and the invitation of him: Brett did what he should have done hours ago, ages ago. He took Danny's face in his hands and brought him into a deep, thorough, long kiss.

Danny was happily kissed, but didn't respond in kind until Brett drew back, and Brett discovered that the only thing better than kissing Danny Wilde was being kissed by Danny Wilde.

Danny propped up on one arm, looking down at him with a soft smile. Brett stretched languidly, enjoying where the movement meshed their bodies together. Danny toyed with Brett's medallion, rolling its edge over his chest.

"You. Stupid, I'll tell ya." He kissed Brett's neck and murmured in his ear, "You don't like it rough, you just like it good." Brett's cheeks flushed with warmth, but he didn't have a compelling argument against this. Danny shook his head a little, looking at him. "You really let guys treat you like that?"

Brett skimmed his fingers down Danny's back. He raised an eyebrow at Danny's naïveté. "My dear Daniel. Have you never sampled darker charms? Been seduced by the attraction of rough boys?"

"I've been around a few blocks in my day," Danny said in such a way that Brett was left with no doubts that Danny had been to even murkier places than he, and he felt a shameful titillating curiosity.

"You didn't enjoy it?" Brett asked, skeptical.

"No," Danny said with flat honesty. He smiled slowly and rubbed one fingertip over Brett's lips. "I guess I have more refined tastes."

"Refined," Brett said against his finger, amused.

"Some kinda tastes, I tell ya, falling for an ugly mug like yours."

Brett batted his eyelashes. "I can recall you calling me beautiful. Feel free to continue to do so."

Danny grinned. "What's the point of telling you something you already know?" He kissed Brett's cheek. "Dollface."

Brett sank his fingers into Danny's hair and kissed him slowly. "Peasant."

"Mmm." Danny brushed a lock of hair from Brett's forehead and looked into his eyes. "I'm going to miss you, your highness."

Brett's pulse tripped, and a chill entered the lazy, cocooning warmth he'd been feeling. He glanced away, patting Danny's shoulder. "You're going back to America."

"Yeah." Danny watched him for a moment. "Yeah, I, uh, should take Angie... home."

"Yes. Yes, of course."

A feeling of hollowness came over Brett. Here they were in bed, having made love, and somehow it was all tied to Angie's death. And now Danny was going home, carrying that death with him, and all Brett would have was a memory. Oh, it was easy for Danny, wasn't it, with his 'refined tastes'? He could go crash someone else's life, joking and teasing his way into someone else's heart and bed, but this was exactly the moment -- the reason -- why Brett had begun to prefer the anonymous stranger, the chance encounter, the rough lad in the dark. No good-byes for the merely physical.

He looked at Danny and was surprised by the sadness he saw. The rash words, "I could come with you," were on his tongue. He parted his lips to say them, but couldn't. It wasn't his world; Danny had been right about that.

Danny kissed his lips tenderly. "You'll keep the bed warm for me, huh?"

Brett stared into his eyes for a moment. "Of course."

"And leave some of the chicky-babies for me," Danny said lightly.

Brett replied in the same light tone, "I'll make sure all the ugly ones are waiting for your beck and call."

Danny gave him a mock scowl and sat up. He swung his legs over the bed and got out, pacing between the closet and the dresser as he threw on an understated blue shirt and gathered up the rest of his clothes, putting whatever he wasn't going to wear into a suitcase.

"Then everything's set," he said. He picked something up from the desk and tossed it to Brett. Brett caught it easily and held it up: Danny's car keys. Danny looked at him seriously. "Take good care of her. If there's one scratch, one dent..."

Brett sat up, staring at the keys. Only one object, one possession, Danny cared about nearly as much as he cared about his friends and freedom: his Ferrari.

"You really are coming back," Brett said in wonder. Relief and hope flooded him, filling the hollowness.

Danny walked over to the bed and patted Brett's shoulder. "Listen, your lordship, I know a good thing when I see it. I'm not some dummy. 'Course I'm coming back. I gotta put Angie to rest, I owe him that, and then, well, then it's back to whatever it is I'm doing here."

Impulsively, Brett caught his hand and held it for a moment before letting go. "Not finished wreaking havoc across the continent of Europe?" he asked with an arch smile. _Not finished driving me crazy?_ he thought, but did not ask.

Danny probably knew what he was thinking anyway. He winked at him. "Not on your life, baby."

(the end)


End file.
